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All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy - Because I'm nuts about Cormac McCarthy's unique writing style.
Promised Lands by Jane Rogers - Because it's clever, intelligent, informative and entertaining.
Fools of Fortune by William Trevor - Because of the way it unfolds the issues in an indirect yet accurate way.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - Because it was one of those 'life changing' novels I read as a kid which remains vividly with me
Fly Away Peter by David Malouf - Because it's excellent, gentle, and its message about war communicated. |
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels - A supremely artful and moving novel by a wonderful Canadian poet and novelist.
The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper - The best kind of fantasy -- real and magical.
Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger - Heartbreakingly charming and clever.
Anything by Jan Morris - An essayist who pierces not just place but culture with great elegance and erudition
The Waste Land by TS Eliot - Because it still gives me goosebumps every time. |
As It Happened by J. Button
John Curtin by David Day
True Believers: the story of the federal parliamentary Labor Party ed. J. Faulkner & S. Macintyre
A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam in politics by Graham Freudenberg
The light on the hill : the Australian Labor Party, 1891-1991 by Ross McMullin
Barwick by David Marr
Whatever It Takes by Graham Richardson
Illusions of power: the fate of a reform government by Michael Sexton
Recollections of a bleeding heart : a portrait of Paul Keating PM by Don Watson |
The World According to Garp by John Irving
Completely destroyed a novel I was working on at the time by turning it into a pale imitation of this.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Insane and plausible, scary and funny.
The Beach by Alex Garland
I can't stop re-reading this. It's a kind of sickness.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
I'll push people aside to get my hands on anything Stephenson has written, but this idea-packed sci-fi was where I got started.
The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
Before he became Dr House on TV, he wrote a really funny novel. No, really. |
Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen
Only the greatest novel ever written in the English language. Don’t let the bodice-heaving
movies put you off—read it now.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
Part of the series of detective stories from the 1920s featuring amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Wonderfully written, witty and surprisingly touching.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
A sprawling three-ring-circus of a book. Colourful, crowded, noisy, laugh out loud funny,
absolutely brilliant.
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The romance made me swoon, unravelling the emotional mystery was compelling, and the
poetry—well, OK. I might have skipped over the poetry bits.
Independence Day by Richard Ford What this man can do with a sentence shouldn’t be legal. Seductive prose that reveals the
humanity and compassion of the writer. |
If This Is A Man by Primo Levi
What can I say? I give this book to everyone.
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
I sometimes think that I’m Mrs Dalloway except that none of the facts fit except our age! I love the skittish stream of consciousness.
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
By the rebellious author of The Little Prince. I think I enjoyed this book more when I was young but the romance of being an early pilot never loses its appeal.
Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
The first Georgette Heyer book that hooked me at 13. I re-read these delightful Regency comedies of manners whenever I’m on holidays.
Granta
Nothing thrills me quite like getting my subscription copy of Granta in the mail, and unusually, the reading is better than the anticipation. |
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Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee: An allegory of our fear of the Other that is (unfortunately) always timely.
Underworld by Don DeLillo: The swan song of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the great contemporary American novels.
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert: A novel of relationships and revolution, the book Flaubert described as “a moral history of the men of my generation.”
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector: This slim philosophical novel set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro unfolds with the beauty and intensity of a poem.
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf: Set in Queensland in the middle of the 19th century, this is only one of several masterpieces from an Australian writer who deserves the Nobel Prize.
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann: The saga of four generations of a German family and a great pleasure of the reading life.
Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson: Elegant essays on the permanency of art that help us understand what we live and experience.
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Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. My first reading of passion though I didn’t recognise it as such in my early teens.
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. A portrait of the greatest mass murderer of modern times – the man from whom China’s unelected leaders derive their dubious legitimacy.
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. Australia’s most brilliant wordsmith on his own country.
Chinese Shadows by Simon Leys. Taught me to look below the surface and question appearances in China.
Vanity Fair by W.M. Thackeray. Introduced me as a naive young Tasmanian to the wiles of the world beyond. I admired Becky Sharp until she overstepped the mark. |
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